Skier buried for 5 hours is alive

A SKIER buried under an avalanche for five hours has been found alive.

Mountain rescuers in Austria called the unnamed 26-year-old’s survival a ‘Christmas miracle’ after he managed to prevent hypothermia from killing him.

He did so by continually moving his muscles to keep his blood flowing.

A friend of the man phoned police at 5pm local time on Christmas Day to say he had not returned from skiing.

Rescuers found him about two hours later by pinpointing him on his electronic transceiver. He was found under 3ft of snow on Mount Pleschnitzzinken in Upper Styria, suffering from hypothermia but otherwise unharmed.

Stefan Schrock, from the Styria mountain rescue service, said: ‘The man was extremely lucky that he had a big enough air pocket under the blanket of snow so he was able to breathe.’